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Besides the Uber mishegas, the other unexpected bit of fun I had in Cannes involved Vine, Twitter’s six-second video platform. Our first night on the town, I met Rob Fishman. Rob runs Niche, a talent agency that connects Vine (and other social media) stars to advertisers that recently sold to Twitter in a very nice deal for a company only 18 months old. I was only ambiently aware of Niche before meeting Rob, so it was fascinating to learn about the business, and to hear about the gaggle of Vine stars they’d brought to Cannes.

My last night in town, Trei, Jonathan, and I decided to get off the beaten path and have dinner at Côté Jardin, a French restaurant on the edge of town. We were sitting in the garden, enjoying a bottle of rosé, when Rob rolled in followed by his coterie of Vine stars. The experience didn’t turn interactive until I went to the bathroom later in the meal and, on the way back to the table, got drafted by Sara Hopkins (700k Vine followers) and Robby Ayala (3.3 million Vine followers) to appear as an extra in a Vine they were crafting.

After shooting it (in one take), Sara returned to her table where she edited and posted the Vine. Within 12 hours, it had 2 million loops (Vine parlance for views); it now tallies nearly 4 million. The results of her handiwork — and my background appearance — can be experienced above.

I haven’t been a big follower of Vine, but as I got into the content of the Vine stars over the next day, it became obvious that what I think Trei observed to me — that Vine is basically a platform for Three Stooges-type slapstick — was right on. The whole experience, especially the speed with which the idea for the Vine was conceptualized and then published, reminded me a lot of blogging. For me, it felt great to master another social platform: 4 million loops and counting, thank you very much.

I’ve been in Cannes, France since last weekend with a great cast of colleagues. This is the week each year when the advertising and media industries descend on this town for Cannes Lions, an advertising awards/conference/thing that’s really an excuse for taking one thousand meetings and drinking one thousand glassies of rosé. (Current personal tally: 882, with 18 hours to go.) It’s a beautiful place to be, we’ve had a ton of great meetings, and we hosted a dinner with Gawker Media last night at Da Mimmo. As the week begins to wind down, all we have left to worry about is getting our heads beaten in by rage-filled taxicab drivers.

Cannes is one of seven French cities where Uber is currently up and operational; predictably, it works perfectly. Riding in an Uber a few nights ago, I struck up conversation with the driver. He proceeded to do what Uber drivers do everywhere: bitch about Uber. What used to be a 100 euro trip from the airport to Cannes is now just a 45 euro trip, we learned, which seems like a decent consumer benefit? In any case, what upset our (Uber Black) driver even more than Uber’s pricing is the existence of UberPOP, which is what UberX is called in Europe. As a licensed black car driver, he thinks only licensed drivers should be allowed on the Uber platform. Uber, of course, disagrees.

The French cab drivers are also upset about the existence of UberPOP, and to make that clear to the world, they’ve decided today to burn the country to the ground. Having lived in Paris in the late 1990′s, I’m familiar with the French predilection to faire une grève; I even fondly recall a dairy farmer strike that filled the streets of Paris with cows one day. Today, though, the French cabbies are taking things a little further.

Driving into Cannes this morning from the Vox Manor on the edge of town, we hit a roadblock of cabbies and police officers in a roundabout. UberSTOP stickers adorned the backs of idle taxis. Jonathan Hunt expertly navigated past the roadblock, which had only managed to curtail traffic coming from the other direction; there was much shouting. Evidently we faired better than Courtney Love, whose car got smashed at a Paris airport while cops looked on. “Is it legal for your people to attack visitors?” she asked on Twitter. (Excellent question.) I haven’t witnessed any violence, though a guest at our Vox BBQ this afternoon told me she’d seen an UberPOP driver pulled from his car and beaten on the other side of town. Um, Jesus.

I’m writing these words looking out over the bright blue Mediterranean, and the cognitive dissonance is as strong as the breeze.

Los Angeles is always great, but I’m over Abbott Kinney. This kills me, given the amount of time I’ve spent on Venice’s main drag over the past decade-plus, starting with a night sometime around Y2K at The Brig, when it was pretty much the only establishment on upper AK (or at least felt that way). Add in two dozen lunches at Gjelina, great dinners at The Tasting Room, and endless nights finished with MOP at Hal’s, and, well, I feel like I grew up in LA alongside Abbott Kinney.

But now Hal’s has shuttered (seriously, wtf) and walking down Abbott Kinney on Saturday afternoon, the sheer mass of humanity felt as dense and annoying as pushing through the crowds on 41st Street. There’s a Vince about to open, too, not too far from that giant Intelligencia.

Though AK may have passed into its precitable adulthood, much of the rest of Venice is still growing up. I bedded down for the weekend at a friends’ place north and east of Abbott Kinney, a short walk from the year-old Superba Food & Bread. I walked in there Friday afternoon for a late lunch to find Alex Blagg and Neel Shah in a corner, writing, natch. Ordered the soft shell crab sandwich, above — a far more manageable take on Lafayette’s massive entire-crab-sticking-out beast — indeed, Superba’s is perhaps the perfect take on this dish. I dig Superba so much that I lunched there Saturday and Sunday too. This wasn’t a restaurant-checklist kind of trip, for whatever reason. (Sanity.)

Stuck around Venice for dinner on Friday night, dining at the nearly-empty back counter at Gjusta. Dinner is a new offering at this uberhyped Gjelina spinoff, and no one knows about it so the crowds that haunt this hall in the mornings and at lunch are nowhere to be seen at night. Food-wise, the seafood stew (above) is fantastic, and the salads, chicken liver pate, and the like that Mimi and I shared were all spot-on. No liquor license as yet, though they’re gathering signatures at the register; NB dinner ends at 9pm.

I’d be thrilled to have Gjusta right near home, but not everyone is. LA Weekly food critic Besha Roddel hit upon this in her review of the place last week, which echoes my feelings on the hood: “Gjusta’s sister restaurant Gjelina is in some ways a symbol of the vast difference between Abbot Kinney now and the Abbot Kinney of an older, weirder Venice, and so to some residents Gjusta feels like the beginning of the end, the bringer of yuppies and even higher rents… It may or may not become a full-fledged restaurant. Either way, Venice’s gentrified future marches on, and this particular future tastes better than many of the alternatives.” The woman is not wrong.

The rest of the weekend? Saturday night dinner at Sushi Zo downtown with the Webber; it’s pretty much the perfect omakase if the price can be stomached. Sunday hiking in Malibu with Mere and new friend Wyatt, followed by early evening oysters and beer at Blue Plate Oysterette on Ocean Ave. in Santa Monica (above). Sunday later-evening dinner found Team Eater at the reliable Rustic Canyon Wine Bar up Wilshire.

Wonderful things about Asheville, NC: (1) It’s the most charming little hill town in eastern North Carolina, a corner of the world I’ve never been; (2) Spring is old news here; the thought now is summer, with rhododendrons in full bloom, and temperatures floating in the 70s; (3) The Mast General Store, the place for homemade condiments and cleaning products; (4) Views to the mountains surrounding us on all sides — sublime; (5) THE EATS.

Traditionally, every spring Eater’s Amanda Kludt and I hit the road for a roadtrip designed to let us plot the the future of Eater and eat a ton of delicious things somewhere in America. Several years ago, the jaunt took us through Texas; last year, we spent a few days in Nashville before heading east across Tennessee to Blackberry Farm. This year, we’ve embarked on a #carolinaconquest, starting with two days in Asheville then moving east to Lexington and Greensboro through the first of two distinct Carolina barbecue territories that we’re going to experience on this trip before docking in Raleigh for the night tonight and continuing farther east tomorrow.

[Pizza with house-made burrata at Cucina 24.]

The big difference this year: Amanda and I are joined on our journey by Eater’s roving national food critic, Bill Addison. Bill’s based out of Atlanta, so he knows this part of the country cold, and his knowledge is already paying off bigtime.

At the tail end of last year’s trip, a massive banks of thunderstorms up the entire East Coast trapped me unexpectedly in Knoxville, TN for the night. Knoxville was kind of cool, but Asheville — with a similar vibe of old-town main streets — is way cooler. It’s an incredible charming place awash in mountain air and, from what I can tell so far, fantastic restaurants. I’m not going to go into detail about what we’re eating, because Bill will do that in due time on Eater, but we’ve had meals at Cúrate, Nightbell, Cucina 24, Table, and Rhubarb here in town and none have disappointed. (To my mind, Cucina 24 and Table would stand apart anywhere, but let’s see what Bill has to say.)

Yesterday also took us on an hour-long drive further up the hills to the remote hamlet of Spruce Pine, NC. There, something very unexpected and wonderful happened to our little group. But that, too, is a story for another day so as not to spoil the forthcoming reveal on Eater.

Enough words for now. Back on the road. The #carolinaconquest continues.

Now that it’s clear to all that I’m back to daily blogging (three = trend), here’s a completely gratuitous photograph of me onstage at Digital Content Europe in London last week, talking Vox Media. This presentation followed one the previous week that Vox Media Creative Director Chad Mumm and I gave onstage at MIPTV in Cannes, France.

“Cannes? Oh, it’s an armpit,” Mom Steele remarked when I told her the plans for my trip. She wasn’t exactly wrong — I knew what she meant, at least — but I’d never been to the South of France and I figured going there in mid-April from New York would not be worst thing. Nor was Cannes’ old harbor non-charming, nor was the food at Da Laura not completely delicious both times I lunched there.

But there’s something funny about these industry gatherings: the main outcome of them appears to be getting oneself invited to more of them. Vox hosted a lunch for MIP attendees my last day in Cannes, at which numerous persons associated with other conferences lined up to invite me/Vox to their conference. Nothing wrong with a nice invitation, and I’ll probably go to at least one of them, because I’ve always wanted to see Antarctica. But as Ezra Klein pointed out to me when I was hanging out at the Vox office in Washington, DC a few weeks ago, the problem with conferences is that arguably the best thing that can happen at them — meeting talent you’d like to hire — tends to happen less often the fancier the conference is.

He’s surely right. Yet abstractions of the conferences world aside, I do love going onstage in front of an audience. The gathering in London in particular was very savvy about Vox Media and deeply fascinated by what we’re doing, so it blossomed into a great conversation. Inside Vox, we’re getting better and better about talking about what we do in these kind of public settings. This Thursday, we’ll put that to the test when Vox showcases at Newfronts for the first time at a big theater in midtown Manhattan. Full report from the front lines to follow.

As we get older, traditions become more important. They are especially important when traditions are of the guys’ weekend variety. Example: We must all leave New York City and go somewhere fun for Super Bowl Weekend because we have always left New York City and gone somewhere fun for Super Bowl Weekend.

In fact, this year’s getaway was Super Bowl Weekend V, and really technically just Super Bowl Weekend IV because last year we substituted my bachelor party on the weekend previous to the big game. No matter. This year, for the first time together, the Hotline Crew would take New Orleans, a city where one of us went to law school, two of us have visited frequently, and two members of our crew — krewe? — had never set foot. Oh, and for the first time since the extremely ill-fated Super Bowl Weekend III, the Patriots would challenge for football’s world championship before the weekend was over.

My last visit to New Orleans came during Jazzfest in 2010 — a time before Airbnb, or at least before I’d ever heard of Airbnb. This time, it was the obvious choice, and we ended up in the three-story townhouse in the Lower Garden District seen above. Tremendous spot…

… and not just because the house was directly next door to the establishment Tacos and Beer, where the group of early arrivals enjoyed pre-dinner on Friday night. This patio would swell with Seahawks fans on Super Bowl Sunday, their cheers driving into my skull like rusty nails, but until then, hey — Tacos and Beer.

Restaurant report: all Donald Link all the time. We took Friday night dinner at Cochon, complete with fried oysters even larger than I remembered them. The vibe at Cochon is great, and though the food on this visit didn’t blow me away, hard to think of a better place to start a weekend of epic consumption.

After a late Friday and a lazy start to Saturday, lunch came in the form of a 20-sandwich platter pickup from Cochon’s next-door spinoff, Cochon Butcher. I am on record stating that their may be no finer establishment in the United States of America than Cochon Butcher, an opinion arrived at after lunching there back in 2010 and confirmed after this trip. They’ve more than doubled the size of the room, making it a much easier place to sit and lunch, and the menu’s grown as well [PDF], though we didn’t venture outside sandwiches on this trip despite MOP’s plea that the boudin is terrific. (Next time.) The Cochon Muffaletta, the cold roast beef, and a pressed-pork creation all absolutely killed it, along with sides of Brussels sprouts and potato salad.

The one glaring omission from our sandwich binge: the Blackboard Bacon Melt, which Eater’s Bill Addison recently declared the finest sandwich in the country. (Addison: “A genius construction of thick, crisp-soft cured pork layered with stewed collard greens, pepper aioli, and Swiss cheese on buttery toast. I crave it more than any other sandwich in America.”) Didn’t realize we’d missed it until Bill commented on my Instagram of the platter. Fuck.

After an afternoon wandering the French Quarter, getting our two Nola virgins up to speed on Cafe du Monde, then grabbing Buds at old favorite the Chart House, dinner went down at Peche, another Donald Link restaurant and one new to the city since my last visit. Last year, the James Beard Foundation handed its award for the best new restaurant in America to this place, which seemed as good a reason as any to try it.

The space — like Cochon, it’s in the old warehouse district — is airy and cool, and the vibe, like Cochon, active and fun. We went with a bunch of shared starters (the shrimp toast, though boring in name, is absolutely sublime) before splitting a large whole redfish sauced in salsa verde. Excellent. Would eat again.

After dinner, the crowd outside swelled for the Krewe de Vieux parade, one of the first in the season leading into Mardi Gras. Now, for various and uncertain reasons, we somehow managed to miss the parade, but we made it into the official afterparty, which: insanity. Next year we do it right and costume it up.

Super Bowl Sunday dawned warm and wet across the Bayou, and I walked around the corner from our rental to find the Cajun Boy and his renowned dog Sazerac. Cajun took me to this perfect hipster coffee spot, then toured me his house and neighborhood. The plan was to watch the game at a bar right by there, but fate had other ideas, and we ended up watching the game at our townhouse. It was a good game.

Monday dawned with several housemates having made a pre-dawn run to the airport. I followed in mid-morning to find flight into LGA already delayed two hours. Simple sleuthing made it clear that, with weather conditions deteriorating in New York, a flight out that afternoon wasn’t going to happen. When the departure time got pushed back to 6pm, I switched my flight to a Tuesday AM departure and headed back into the city.

Where, over a late lunch at Cochon Butcher, I finally ate the Blackboard Bacon Melt. Worth the whole trip. (Dined solo on Monday night at Sylvain in the French Quarter, which I’d also highly recommend. Good food but an alleyway-entrance vibe that entranced me. Like a divier version of McCrady’s in Charleston.)

I love Texas. A pet theory of mine holds that the two greatest states in the Union are Maine and Texas, which means the Bush Family pretty much wins at life. So be it: both states are amazing in totally different ways, and I’m always excited for a trip to Lone Star territory.

This past weekend, Linds and I took a quick trip down thataway to the city of Tyler, Texas, to visit her Aunt Mary. Everything I know about Tyler I learned from Aunt Mary over the past two days: first, that it’s considered an old-money oil town; second, that it’s a whole lot fancier than I would have expected for a place a two-hour drive southwest of Dallas, seemingly in the middle of nowhere; third, that everyone there roots for the Cowboys, the idea of rooting for a Houston team sounding hilarious, if not hysterical.

We flew into Love Field (DAL) on Friday evening, an experience so superior to landing at DFW that I can’t believe I didn’t know this was an option until now. In all the ways DFW is remote and impossible, DAL is easy: directly adjacent to the downtown, with light and airy terminals. (Bonus: one need not drive past AT&T/Cowboy Stadium on the way towards wherever one is going after leaving the airport.) After landing, we made a quick escape from the Dallas environs, hit up the requisite pitstop at a Chik-fil-a off I-20, then drove a couple hours through the badlands of Texas to Tyler.

Our weekend was spent mostly at Aunt Mary’s house, entertaining our nephew and niece, in Tyler with their mother (Lindsey’s sister) and Dad. We did break out of the house for lunch on Saturday, because when in Rome:

[Jalapeno Tree — Crazy Good Mexican Food!]

As solid as this joint turned out to be — and, for a fast-casual chain, it actually was just fine — get the quail kebabs — it wasn’t the best of what Texas has to offer, dining-wise. This wasn’t our trip for culinary exploration, but based on a Spring 2013 Texas dining roadtrip that I embarked on with Eater’s Amanda Kludt, here’s what you need to know: Austin is overrated, Dallas gets it done, but all the best places are in Houston.

Futher proof of these claims come from Eater roving critic Bill Addison, who named one spot from Dallas and two from Houston to his National 38 list earlier this month, while snubbing Austin completely. The two spots Bill chose in Houston — Underbelly and Oxheart — blew Amanda and I away too, as they have just about every major dining critic who has passed through town in recent years. We loved our meal at The Pass and Provisions as well. Bottom line: do not sleep on Houston. It’s one of the best cities in America right now for a weekend dining getaway.

If one needed an excuse for another Texas dining roadtrip, the gas prices seen outside of Tyler this weekend — similar to those seen near Dallas, too — certainly provide it:

I spent the Martin Luther King Day weekend in Munich, Germany, at the DLD15 conference. It was my first time at DLD, a conference that serves as something of a staging pad for those on their way to Davos. The mix of people, although heavy on media, is interesting. I ended up in a great conversation with a founder of a global clean water initiative; gave an interview about Vox Media to an Austrian outlet, which is likely to have a major impact on our global mindshare; and advised a young German journalist on whether he should start a site in the spirit of Vox.com for his country (of course!). And, natch, I spoke on a panel that included Kate Lewis from Hearst and MailOnline publisher Martin Clarke. We were fiesty and fun.

That this panel was held at 9:05am on Monday morning, after I’d stayed up watching the Patriots dispatch the Colts — a game that wrapped just before 4am Munich time — and that I looked so fresh-faced, as evidenced in the photograph above — is a testament to the excellent meats and beers of this fine city. I’d last visited Munich on a summertime Eurorail trip through Eastern Europe in 1993; my friend Sesh and I had dipped into Munich after exploring the Czech Republic because we had a friend living in the city for the summer. My lasting memory is the group of us openly urinating in the street sometime on the other side of midnight.

This time around, no such luck, although I did get some good eating in. Sunday night, I snuck out of the kickoff dinner and met Felix and Michelle at Brenner. I approached the restaurant, above, across an open square, and was delighted but unsurprised when I found out that’s where we were dining. It’s a mediterranean menu in a big open mod-Bavarian space; I had an excellent steak. A group of journalists including John Gapper, Marcus Brauchli, and the entire senior Fusion team joined our table which led to a massively hilarious meal and the self-satisfied feeling that I was at last networking appropriately.

Two other straight-up Bavarian meals of note: Monday lunch with Kate at Zum Franziskaner (two giant, crackling pig ribs); and dinner with a different iteration of Felix’s crew at Zum Dürnbräu (a perfect viener schnitzel and table tastings of this craziness.)

Hola amigos. It’s been a little while since I rapped at ya. Seems I’ve been on the West Coast of the United States, first for a birthday weekend celebrating the man, the myth, the 40th birthday party that is MOP, then in Los Angeles for a few days of Vox Media work supplemented with speaking at Brad Inman’s Luxury Connect event in Beverly Hills 90210. They don’t yet have blog software on the west coast, so sorry for the radio silence. Here’s what went down.

NAPA VALLEY HILLS
Mike had quite the entourage for his birthday weekend — about 50 folks, all told — but a group of us from college got the nod to stay at an Airbnb he arranged in the hills above Yountville. As Mike observed, it was as if the owners decided on the exact spot for the hot tub, then built the rest of the place around it. No complaints.

GOTT’S ROADSIDE(top)
I’ve been to Napa a bunch of times in recent years, mostly for fancy meals as part of Team Eater. No complaints about that either, but it was a blast to start the Napa weekend with a big group dinner at Gott’s Roadside in St. Helena, a place I’ve driven past a bunch of times but never stopped over at. You know the menu, and you know exactly how good it is (especially when supplemented with special wines brought in by Mike’s mom and stepdad). Should you go, do not miss the onion rings.

CHATEAU MONTELENA
The group activity for Saturday, presented by Mike’s Dad: a tour of the Chateau Montelena winery in Calistoga, as far north in Napa Valley as I’ve ever been. The winery is famous for 1976′s Judgement of Paris, the first time California and Oregon wines faced off against French wine critics on the home terroir of France and beat the French at their own game. Although Chateau Montelena won back then for its chardonnay, the winery is better known for its reds. We tasted rieseling, then a flight of cabernets from 2010, 2005, and 2004. I thought the 2004 walked away with it, but I might just have been picking the oldest year to sound like I know what I’m talking about. (Above, me with the one and only Gaby Darbyshire.)

CALISTOGA INN
Late Saturday lunch after wine tasting at the unassuming Calistoga Inn nearby. Waiting for our table of ~12 to be readied, ran into Courtney and Zach and their li’l tyke, which, small freaking valley, my friends. Had a fresh fish special and made friends with a few folks in the birthday party I didn’t already know. Good vibes, good vibes.

TRA VIGNE
Saturday night dinner: a seated affair at Ristorante Tra Vigne back in St. Helena. Another place I’ve driven past a bunch of times but never sat down and eaten at, but will again; the meal was first-rate. I had to split the next morning but dropped by brunch at Boon Fly Cafe and grabbed a few of their famous donuts, which are exactly the size of a ripe peach and equally delicious, albeit less organic-slash-healthy.

Onward to Los Angeles.

KANPAI/GJELINA
Upon arrival at LAX, met by Meredith, who took me to a hole-in-the-wall sushi place called Kanpai on the drive between LAX and Venice. We picked up sushi to go which inevitably tasted better than 95% of all pricey sushi in New York City. The next day we lunched at Gjelina on Abbot-Kinney in Venice, a place I’ve eaten about a thousand times and, God willing, will eat at least a thousand times more. Gjelina, now and forever.

SUSHI PARK
After a night at Meredith’s new apartment in Venice, checked into hotelier Jeff Klein’s Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood on Sunset, one of my favorite hotels in the world. Among the perks: walking distance to Sushi Park, a restaurant that then-Eater LA editor (now, having moved back to NYC, Eater’s editorial producer) Kat Odell first took me to in 2010. Sushi Park is one of those only-in-LA (or Tokyo) sushi restaurants situated on the second level of a strip mall, with decor to match, that has strict rules about what you can and can’t expect. Attention must be paid.

Walking into the one-third filled restaurant at lunchtime, the hostess stopped me. “Reservation?” No. “First time here?” No. Which relieved her a great deal, because Sushi Park clearly deals with a lot of folks who wander in having no idea what they’re in for. If you’re sitting at the sushi bar, as I did, it’s omakase only, and worth the hefty price tag for one of the best omakase (omakases?) you’ll ever eat. I’m convinced that a few omakase meals of this variety in Los Angeles last winter ruined me for Sushi Nakazawa in the West Village, Zagat’s top-ranked new restaurant in NYC this year that I thought couldn’t hold a candle to LA sushi. Really not Nakazawa’s fault.

FREDS AT BARNEYS
Also lunched one day with new Eater LA editor Matthew Kang at the brand new (opened two weeks ago) outpost of Freds at Barneys in Beverly Hills. If you know Fred’s at the Barneys in midtown NYC, expect the same vibe: an epic ladies-who-lunch scene abetted by a menu tailored for them. Our pasta and pizza both looked gorgeous but lacked, well, taste. Probably could have called that.

ORSA & WINSTON
Final night in LA, dinner with Mimi at Orsa & Winston in Downtown LA. The chef, Josef Centeno, oversees a crazy group of great restaurants — Bäco Mercat; Bar Ama; etc. — that are insanely all located in the same one-block radius. Critics like the LATimes’ Jonathan Gold are gaga for this place, which serves tasting menus of five or eight courses in eclectic fashion. We loved the whole night, but the plates were hit-or-miss. Given that the menu changes nightly, we may just have hit an off night. I’ll be back.

The place I spend the most time in the summer outside of NYC is Maine. My family has a house on Prouts Neck, a small colony on the Atlantic Ocean between Kennebunkport and Portland. I’ve been coming here my whole life, as my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather did before me. I’m typing these words from the screened porch of my house, readying for the Labor Day weekend.

Here now, to round out August, photos from this summer in Maine. (Bonus: all content original to LS.com; no Instagram repeats. Must credit LS.com.)

June dandelions.

Checkley Point in June, at its most perilous.

Upstairs at Eastways in July.

The original #sunsetgrammer, in his element, late July.

Late July crew at the Black Point Inn. (Okay, one Instagram rerun.)

Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park, on a hike last weekend made possible when my brother and I ventured up the coast to Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island.